This week’s announcement of the state’s closure of the Hudson River Psychiatric Center (HRPC) and accompanying community residences is a step in the wrong direction. At a time when Dutchess County is already facing a record number of housing-out of mental health patients to other counties (87 in March), we will now be doubling this number due to HRPC’s October closure. This is a tremendous disservice to our neighbors and family members who struggle with mental illness. The distance will hamper treatment by disconnecting families from treatment and stress discharge planning, thereby jeopardizing recovery. Our governor — and particularly the state Legislature, which alone has constitutional authority to determine legislative policy for care and treatment of the mentally ill — have taken a gigantic step backward.The localized preventative and treatment services offered at HRPC have kept an at-risk population out of jail. When the 75 or so severely and persistently mentally ill who are forced into the community without the requisite daily skills or those similar in number currently housed in community residences are pushed into apartments unready and without the supports they need, the county will pay. As we know from the past when HRPC was downsized (and with the closure of Harlem Valley Psychiatric Hospital), although the state expenditures decreased, the county cost rose due to increased law enforcement and jail expenses for untreated patients. Today somewhere between 20 to 40 percent of the current jail population are those with mental health symptoms. While legitimate lawbreakers should be punished, we must also not create the perfect storm that uses the incarceration of the mentally ill as a socially acceptable means of otherwise frowned-upon institutionalization.Let’s be clear, the mentally ill are not criminals. But when the system fails them and they cannot get the treatment they need, they will find that help in our prisons and jails. In addition to the HRPC closure, the state budget also idiotically reduces the scope of county mental hygiene departments to mere consultant roles. It does so at a time when the diaspora of patients into the community will most need county leadership to preserve an integrity of care while also keeping the county cost down. The state Legislature’s recent decision to shift public health management decision-making for community well-being away from counties and give it instead to profit-driven, privatized behavioral health organizations (BHOs) was a mistake, particularly at this time. I lobbied against this in Albany in February. Our state local delegation should seek to repeal this change without delay.In Dutchess County we need to be proactive. First, we need to find ways to help our neighbors and family members who struggle with mental illness to stay well and receive services close to home. And second we need to keep our taxes from rising following this insane and inhuman policy shift coming from Albany that pretends to be cutting state spending when in fact it merely shifts the expenses to the county via public safety costs while our citizenry suffers with loss of services and increased crime. Michael Kelsey represents Amenia, Washington, Pleasant Valley, Stanford and Millbrook in the County Legislature. Write him at KelseyESQ@yahoo.com.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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